The 24-year-old intern, Dianna Hanson, had a love for big cats and some experience caring for them. She did not know that a 4-year-old African lion would open an improperly secured gate and enter the empty enclosure she was cleaning. Lions, like bears, elephants, gorillas and other exotic animals, are wild and dangerous. Hanson paid with her life. So did the lion, shot by a sheriff's deputy.

Human death by animal is far from unique. It's tragic. So is the reverse — and it, too, is far from unique. In 2009 a Saylorsburg woman was fatally mauled by a captive bear that had lived on her property for nine years. She was cleaning its cage when the bear she called "Teddy" attacked. A neighbor shot the animal before he could attack again.

Big cats alone take a heavy human toll. Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Fla., reported last year that nationwide at least 21 people, including five children, were killed, and 246 mauled, by exotic cats since 1990. Some 254 cats also escaped, and 143 were killed. Even professionally run zoos aren't exempt. In 2007, a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo jumped out of its enclosure and fatally mauled a 17-year-old boy. Police killed the animal. Professional entertainers, too, fall victim. In 2003 a performing tiger nearly killed trainer Roy Horn of the famous Las Vegas Mirage act Siegfried & Roy during a performance. Then there are individual animal fanciers like the Connecticut resident who rents an entire house in Price Township just to house his "pet" alligators. This, too, could be called an accident waiting to happen.

Zoos and wild animal parks often tout the educational and conservation goals. Still, sometimes staff members, presumably knowledgeable and trained to be cautious, fall victim to animals whose behavior can never be taken for granted.

Like any other potential prey of wild creatures, humans who venture into close contact with the animals they love do so at their own peril. The real pity is that all too often the blindness of humans results in animals that pay the ultimate price — simply for being themselves.